Saturday, April 14, 2018

On Friday April 13, 2018, US President Donald J. Trump
appeared on television announcing the commencement of punitive airstrikes on
chemical weapons research and storage installation of the regime of Syrian
President Bashar Al Assad. Joining the US in the attack, the United Kingdom and
France, struck in response to renewed attacks by the Assad regime against
insurgents in the city of Douma located east of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
A chemical attack on April 7th killed an estimated forty-two (42)
people and effected degrees of injuries on up to 500 more persons following yet
another breakdown in a Russian brokered cease fire between factions in Syria’s
ongoing civil war. Images and stories in the aftermath highlighted the
humanitarian cruelty of the Assad’s sectarian Alawites against their Muslim neighbors.
Toxicology and treatment reports from the area reported the use of a nerve
agent possibly combined with chlorine, apparently an attempt to conceal the
deadlier compounds. The ordnance was reportedly delivered via the Assad
regime’s favored method, Syrian Air Force helicopter dropped barrel bomb(s). Typical
of the subterfuge that is the Middle East, cover up stories seeking to muddy
the finger pointing as to who actually perpetrated the attack followed; a
number of them designed to cause doubt that the insurgents themselves may have
martyred their own in an attempt to gain attention on the world stage as
government forces closed in. Planted pictures, the “fake news” of hacktivism
and the exploitation of the internet. You
want to know more about how sophisticated that gets? Google “Syrian Electronic Army”

The global response so far has been surgically forceful. If
you examine it from all sides, rather cooperatively so. The Russians could not
have been happy that their attempt at brokering a cease fire in a relentless civil
war had failed yet again. The US, which the week before had been contemplating
ramping down operations as the war against ISIS waned, found itself dragged
into the troubles of Western Syria, where the US does not operate, to deal with
a breach of the Chemical Weapons Conventions. The Iranians and Israelis, who
had been playing their own tit-for-tat in southern Syria, found their squabbles
on the global back burner. And even Turkey, itself embroiled in the sticky multi-national
pickle in northern Syria dealing with the Kurdish question of a culture
straddling three countries who would rather not have to deal with them except
that they’ve managed to charm the Americans, found themselves having to think
global.

The world began to maneuver recognizing that the nation of
Syria, its civil war including all its factions, had once again crossed that
mythical Red Line in the Sand. Except this time, the United States was
telegraphing it as going to make good on the threat to pound that sand. In the
week between the 7th and 13th the world saw a global
negotiation via diplomatic, press and social media channels. Negotiated gruffly
yes, but amazingly efficiently turned into an actionable “deal”.

Alignments of Strategic
Interests

There is no compelling global interest to take on the task
of policing the civil war in western Syria. The “Deliver Us from Evil’ era of
human rights interventionism of the last quarter century in places like Bosnia,
Afghanistan and Iraq is over. This dispute is for the Syrians to work out for
themselves. The world’s present-day mission is to contain civil wars, not end
them.

Digging deeper, there is no compelling interest for non-Syrian
regional players to attempt sudden gains in the regional “hill and valley”
power matrix while this latest episode unfolds.
Consider,

The Iranians need a more stable Syria with a surviving Assad
regime if they ever hope to complete their Shia Crescent hopes to reach the
Mediterranean. Tehran’s main worry in the future is less America than it is
whether America vigorously back the inevitable Saudi and Israeli opposition to
the Persian dream.

The Turks similarly see no gain to upsetting the Syrian status
quo to their south; they’re more worried that a break up of Syria would trigger
a question of the Kurds in Syria, Iraq and Turkey demanding independence and
possibly getting American help. This does not serve the Erdogan regime’s
objectives.

The Iraqis just want to be left alone to rebuild their
country on their own. Their fear is the “Wild West” might come across their
border and infect them yet again. I once had a conversation with a diplomat where
it came up that Iraq needs a, wait for it, “wall” to keep the Syrian mess on
the far side of the Nineveh Plain from Baghdad. I did joke that they could try talking
to the best wall builders in the Middle East about that. The response of a charming
diplomatic smile noted that perhaps it’s a bit too soon.

What is compelling?

What there is when you get down to the core is a compelling
interest to act to curtail the continued use of chemical weapons within the
Syrian civil war. That need is paramount regardless of who is perpetrator or
victim. As in Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, in the end, there are no innocents here
anymore. Only those who will die and those who will survive.

What bothers humankind is that there is demonstrated capability
and willingness to use chemical weapons in the region. This cannot be allowed. The
pathways of negotiation, even by a forceful presence like Russia’s, did not
work. Sanctions did not work. Threats did not work. The next step of infrastructure
destruction has become a necessity, not an option. It’s interesting to note on
this point that the Russians could not themselves destroy Assad’s chemical
weapons program, that job had to fall to the militaries of the West. Machiavellian.
A turn, within a turn, within a turn.

The West did so with the bulk of the firepower supplied by
the United States. Warning time was sufficient to allow the Russians to move personnel
and assets out of the area, or at least into avoidable locations; an action
that stripped Assad of the ability to defend himself when aerial attack finally
came. Regardless of bellicose bluster, that chess converted a field of
technically capable air defense assets into a motley collection of bottle
rockets. I particularly liked the Russian statement that they would “defend
themselves” as a cool nuance.

The telegraphy of statecraft is subtle and consequential. The
dance between Trump and Putin as it played out, telepathic … and hopeful.Within the Twitter storm of the past week,
there was this.

For now, mischief managed. Tomorrow? Well that’s another day
in the former Garden of Eden.

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About Me

Dennis Santiago is a life long public policy analyst with a background of contributions to U.S. national, foreign and financial policy as well as a C-suite technologist with a history of innovation going back the the 1990's era of the Internet. Mr. Santiago presently serves as the Managing Director for Research and Development at Total Bank Solutions LLC responsible for developing new financial product instruments and financial technology infrastructure solutions. He is the author of the Bank Monitor system in use by federal, state and financial institutions to assess the safety and soundness of U.S. banks.